The Book of the Dead

Smithback picked up the fu

“Shove it upright into the ice, if you please.”

Smithback pushed the fu

Pendergast picked up the flask and, with infinite care, poured the contents into the separatory fu

“That’s it? We’re done?” Smithback could still hear the pounding: rising to a crescendo now, backed up by ever-more-hysterical screaming.

“Yes.”

“Well, let’s hurry up and blow the door!”

“No-that door’s too heavy. Even if we could, we’d kill people: they’re all assembled just on the other side, by the sound of it. I’ve got a better entry point.”

“Where?”

“Follow me.” Pendergast had already turned and was heading out the door, breaking into a catlike run, cradling the beaker protectively. “It’s outside, in the subway station. To get there, we’ll have to leave the museum and run the gauntlet of bystanders outside. Your job, Mr. Smithback, is to get me through that crowd.”

Chapter 64

With a superhuman effort, Nora steadied herself, tried to focus her mind. She realized she was not falling into the well: that the sensation of falling was, in fact, an illusion. The holographic insects had scattered the crowd, inducing a growing panic. The dreadful low throbbing sounds were getting louder, like an infernal drumbeat, and the strobe lights were brighter and more painful than any she had ever experienced. These were not the strobes she had seen in the equipment tests: these flashed so violently that they seemed to be penetrating into her very brain.

She swallowed, looked around. The holographic image of the mummy had vanished, but the fog machines had accelerated and mist was boiling out of the sarcophagus, filling the burial chamber like rising water. The strobes were flashing into the rising fog with extreme rapidity, and each flash blossomed horribly in the mist.

Beside her, Nora felt Viola stumble, and she reached out and grasped the Egyptologist’s hand. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“No, I’m not. What in bloody hell is going on, Nora?”

“I… I don’t know. Some kind of terrible malfunction.”

“Those insects were no malfunction. Those had to be programmed. And these lights…” Viola winced, averting her eyes.

The fog had reached their waists and was still rising. Staring into it, Nora felt an indescribable panic welling up in her. Soon it would fill the room, engulfing them all… It felt as if they were about to drown in the mist and the welter of flashing lights. There were shouts, scattered screams, as the crowd panicked.

“We’ve got to get this crowd out,” she gasped.

“Yes, we must. But, Nora, I can hardly think straight…”

Not far away, Nora saw a man gesticulating madly. In one hand, he held a shield that flashed brilliantly in the winking strobes. “If everybody would please stay calm!” he cried. “I’m a New York City police officer. We’re going to get you out of here. But please, everybody, stay calm!”

Nobody paid the slightest attention.

Closer at hand, Nora heard a familiar voice cry out for help. Turning, she saw the mayor a few feet away, bent over, groping downward into the fog. “My wife-she fell! Elizabeth, where are you?”

The crowd suddenly surged backward in a violent crush, accompanied by a ripple of screams, and Nora felt herself borne along against her will. She saw the undercover cop go down beneath the press of bodies.

“Help!” cried the mayor.

Nora struggled to reach him, but the enormous press of the crowd carried her farther away, and a fresh rumble from the sound system drowned out the mayor’s frantic calls.

I’ve got to do something.

“Listen!” she cried at the top of her lungs. “Listen to me! Everyone listen!”

A lessening of the cries close around her proved that at least some people had heard.

“We have to work together if we’re going to get out. Understand? Everyone join hands and move toward the exit! Do not run or push! Follow me!”

To her amazement and relief, her little speech seemed to have a calming effect. The cries lessened further, and she felt Viola grasp her hand.

The fog was now up to her chest, its surface roiled and tendril-strewn. In a moment, they would be covered, blinded.

“Pass the word along! Keep holding hands! Follow me!”

Nora and Viola moved forward, guiding the crowd. Another enormous boom that was more a sensation than sound-and the crowd surged again in utter panic, abandoning any pretense to order.

“Hold hands!” she cried.

But it was too late: the crowd had lost its mind. Nora felt herself borne along, crushed in the press, the air literally squeezed from her lungs.

“Stop pushing!” she cried, but no one was listening any longer. She heard Viola beside her, also calling for calm, but her voice was swallowed up in the panic of the crowd and the deep booming sounds that filled the tomb. The strobes kept flashing, each flash causing a brief, brilliant explosion of light in the fog. And with each flash, she seemed to feel stranger, heavy… almost drugged. This wasn’t just fear she was feeling: it was something else. What was happening to her head?

The crowd surged toward the Hall of the Chariots, possessed by a mindless, animal panic. Nora clung to Viola’s hand with all her might. Suddenly a new sound cut in over the deep booming-a high keening at the threshold of audibility, rising and falling like a banshee. The razor-sharp shriek seemed to riddle her consciousness like a shotgun blast, increasing the strange sensation of alie

“Viola!”

If there was an answering cry, it was lost in the tumult.

All of a sudden, the pressure around her relented, as if a cork had been released. She gasped, sucking air into her lungs, shaking her head in an attempt to clear it. The fog without seemed mirrored by another fog, growing within her mind.

A pilaster loomed into view through the gloom ahead. She clung to it, recognized a bas-relief: and suddenly knew where she was. The door to the Hall of the Chariots was just up ahead. If they could just get through it and away from the infernal fog…

She flattened herself against the wall, then felt her way along it, keeping out of the panicked crowd, until she could make out the door ahead. People were squeezing through, fighting and clawing, ripping at one another’s clothes, forming a bloody bottleneck of insanity and panic. More grotesque, deep groaning from the hidden speakers, along with an intensification of the bansheelike wail. Under this assault of noise, Nora felt a sudden vertigo, as if she were sinking; the kind of awful swoon she sometimes experienced in the throes of a fever. She staggered, fought to keep her feet: to fall now might mean the end.

She heard a cry and saw, through the swirling mist, a woman nearby, lying on one side, being trampled by the crowd. Instinctively, she bent forward, grabbed an upraised hand, and hauled her to her feet. The woman’s face was bloody, one leg crooked and obviously broken-but she was still alive.

“My leg,” the woman groaned.

“Put your arm around my shoulder!” Nora yelled.